My Black Friday experience

[RGN]

Originally posted by: ir0nw0lf
I broke my "never get up before 7am" rule and got up at 5:45am. Scraped the ice off my truck (in FL, YUCK!!) and went to Officemax. Saw only a few people there, so went to Best Buy real quick. There were literally hundreds of people in the line(s) by 6:30. I know that the fire marshall/inspector would have keeled over and had a double heart attack at how the front door area was jam packed and blocked by a gazillion customers. Went promptly back to Officemax, I wanted that DVD-R drive so bad I could taste it. Got in the line, ~30 people in front of me. When they opened at 7am, there were that many people behind me. People bum rushed to get in, it was really quite pathetic. I casually zipped over to the DVD-R drive boxes and grabbed the only "box" on the shelf. Not realizing all the pick tickets were on the back of that display box, I went towards the line. I turned around after seeing all the pick tickets on the back and went back to the shelf. Took a pick ticket and put the box back on the shelf, by which time all the pick tickets were gone off the box. I am quite certain I got groped during this process hehe. Got the the checkout line, like #20 in line. Just before I got to the counter, some dingleberry employee starts bringing out "Cendyne" boxes like mad to the other register. He did not put them behind a counter or out of the grubby reaches of the customers (this is important!). Customers slowly start to take the drives out of the boxes. I didn't realize that the DVD-R's were in those boxes until I got the register and flashed my pick ticket to the extremely curvacious lady. I was told they are all gone. WTF!?!?!? Why the hell did even have a pick ticket in the first place if they allowed the damn other people to go and grab the drives right out of the boxes? That's pretty piss poor inventory control as well as customer service! Why does a store like OM even have/use pick tickets if they aren't going to properly use them? The sales manager told me there was absolutely positively nothing he could do about it, no raincheck, no substitution.

I've already got a letter to the local Better Business Bureau drafted up over this. I'm sure you all think I'm bitching over little things, but this is truly not cool. I'm finding it hard
to ever consider spending my hard earned $$$ at this store anymore.

Dude, sucks to be you. I went at 11:00 and got a 4x drive for the same price... They were substuting them.

 

[LittleWolf]

Originally posted by: ir0nw0lf
I broke my "never get up before 7am" rule and got up at 5:45am. Scraped the ice off my truck (in FL, YUCK!!) and went to Officemax. Saw only a few people there, so went to Best Buy real quick. There were literally hundreds of people in the line(s) by 6:30. I know that the fire marshall/inspector would have keeled over and had a double heart attack at how the front door area was jam packed and blocked by a gazillion customers. Went promptly back to Officemax, I wanted that DVD-R drive so bad I could taste it. Got in the line, ~30 people in front of me. When they opened at 7am, there were that many people behind me. People bum rushed to get in, it was really quite pathetic. I casually zipped over to the DVD-R drive boxes and grabbed the only "box" on the shelf. Not realizing all the pick tickets were on the back of that display box, I went towards the line. I turned around after seeing all the pick tickets on the back and went back to the shelf. Took a pick ticket and put the box back on the shelf, by which time all the pick tickets were gone off the box. I am quite certain I got groped during this process hehe. Got the the checkout line, like #20 in line. Just before I got to the counter, some dingleberry employee starts bringing out "Cendyne" boxes like mad to the other register. He did not put them behind a counter or out of the grubby reaches of the customers (this is important!). Customers slowly start to take the drives out of the boxes. I didn't realize that the DVD-R's were in those boxes until I got the register and flashed my pick ticket to the extremely curvacious lady. I was told they are all gone. WTF!?!?!? Why the hell did even have a pick ticket in the first place if they allowed the damn other people to go and grab the drives right out of the boxes? That's pretty piss poor inventory control as well as customer service! Why does a store like OM even have/use pick tickets if they aren't going to properly use them? The sales manager told me there was absolutely positively nothing he could do about it, no raincheck, no substitution.

I've already got a letter to the local Better Business Bureau drafted up over this. I'm sure you all think I'm bitching over little things, but this is truly not cool. I'm finding it hard to ever consider spending my hard earned $$$ at this store anymore.

I had similar problem at my local OfficeMax. Their plain sucked. Total choas due to the pick tickets... And ofcourse my local OM had like barely 5 pieces of each ... !@#&%@!


-j

 

[LikeLinus]

The drive he's talking about is a 4x drive? It's the Pioneer A04 rebadged.

I picked up some Smartmedia at BestBuy. They had a ton of it. 29.99 for 128mb, no MIR or anything!!! I also picked up a 2.4ghz Vtech black cordless for 19.99 w/ a 15$ MIR to make it 4.99!

Then we went to Target and purchased a ton of stuff....but nothing that interested me much

 

[Kaervak]

Finally got out of bed about 10-15 minutes ago. I was gonna go look around for stuff, but I've got a laptop to pay for, so nix that.

 

[RGN]

Originally posted by: LikeLinus
The drive he's talking about is a 4x drive? It's the Pioneer A04 rebadged.

The add was for the A04/104 (2x), but several OM's are substituting the new 105 (4x) for the same price.

 

[dman]

Still haven't even gotten dressed (to go out) yet. Just enjoying the day off.

[edit] I'm clothed, just not in going out clothes [/edit]

 

[laFiera]

I live in austin and woke up late (630am) so i decided to drive down to the outlets in san marcos and get me some clothes as i figured all the good stuff would be gone at fry's or bb. Since i live by fry's, I drove by it on my way to mopac and there was a line of about 200 people if not more. "Thank god I"m shopping for clohes," i thought!

I got down to san marcos and decided to stop by their small best buy. Is 830 am and there were like 8 video cards of (the ones for 89.99), and i decided not to get one...Instead went and got me some really good clothes with some good mark downs.

Came back to austin and went to fry's and there was a line going round and round. I was amazed to see so many people there. Looked around the store but the line wasn't worth getting anything so i lieft...it was a good day!

 

[LikeLinus]

Ah I see, i thought the A04 was a 4x R, and 2x RW.

 

[Conflict]

Is best buy crowded as hell because of BF or the biggest shopping day of the year or combo of both?

 

[MaxDSP]

Originally posted by: wyvrn
Read this thread for my BF experience. It wasn't too hot. I think the "sales" being advertised are blown way out of proportion. Stock on sale items was low, and if you weren't there when the doors opened you didn't get squat in my town :frown:

thats their whole point...get an insanely huge crowd excited about a couple of products here and there and get them in the store doors early in the morning. When those extremely limited items are sold out in the first 5 minutes, they can say "Oh, we're out of those because we didn't expect such a crowd, but we do have these similar items at regular price."


thats something compusa has been doing several times a year

 

[MaxDSP]

Originally posted by: Conflict
Is best buy crowded as hell because of BF or the biggest shopping day of the year or combo of both?

i think thats why its called Black Friday, because it is the biggest shopping day of the year, but not too sure. Someone just started a BF history thread...go check that out

EDIT: Linkage to the thread

 

[randomlinh]

black friday most likely. and they didn't even have any deals that warranted me standing in line. i slept in, and bought teh $10 webcams from staples.com

 

[dakata24]

my first BF was pretty cool. went with my bro to BestBuy to get the toshiba laptop for $649 after MIR and the 128MB CF card. was hoping to snag a d-link wireless around they had for $49 after MIR but they were all gone by the time we got inside. they let people that were buying computers/laptops early starting around 5:35. got in around 5:45 or so.. and then waited in the laptop line till they were ready for us (they were doing the emacs desktop system first i think).. while waiting, got my CF card (had a ton on the shelf) and walked around the store looking for a friend that works there (too crazy of a crowd to find him)..

came home, started charging the laptop and then proceeded to goto staples to see if they had any Netgear MR314 wireless routers/pc cards but came up empty handed.. that was about 7:15-7:30. no where near the crowd that was at best buy. even circuit city wasnt as crowded..

went to mcdonalds and had a little quick meal.. and that was it..

my mom and dad went to sears to get that cheap 7 ft pool table for $199 (reg. $349) and will pick that up on monday.. all in all, it was a good experience.. time to get some rest now.

 

[Kevin]

I couldn't believe all the people I saw in Best Buy. Some people were buying crap that was like $5-$10 less than normal. Sorry, but to stand in line for 45 minutes is not worth $10...

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

I woke up around 7:30, played Metroid Prime for a couple of hours, ate breakfast, and ordered assorted presents from Amazon and DeepDiscountDVD.com. With a little luck (for the Post Office), I won't have to set foot in a mall in December.

 

[Imported]

Originally posted by: kevin000
I couldn't believe all the people I saw in Best Buy. Some people were buying crap that was like $5-$10 less than normal. Sorry, but to stand in line for 45 minutes is not worth $10...

One of the major reasons that I didn't find anything worthwhile at BB.. the lines were too long to make it worthwhile..

On a happy note though.. I just got back from In-N-Out and the lady gave me a double-double instead of just a cheeseburger.. Me happy

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Kiyup
MY BF experience.

I just got out of bed. I didn't spend squat

I got out of bed about an hour ago, been playing my bass and mixing a little. Black Friday? What's that? Oh yeah, that's where people think getting up at 5am and waiting in long lines in the cold to save $20 bucks is a good deal.

 

[BatmanNate]

I just woke up here, and am basking in the joy of a paid holiday and the thought of a nice breakfast.

 

[NokiaDude]

My stupid brother wants to get a controller at CC. LOL, it's gonna be PACKED!!!!

 

[waggy]

i have been to most BF sales in the last 10 years.

This year after looking at all the ads i passed. There was NOTHING worth going and standing in line for.

Yeah they had the GF4-ti2000 or whatever it is. but after last years GF3 fiasco (heard form many people that the BB only had 5-8 per store until AFTER the sale). Granted i did get in on the sale.

Yeah they have good prices but they dont put many of the good products on the shalve. a buddy of mine tried to get in on the GF4 deal this year. he was 2nd in line and ran back to the video card area. he said there was 3 on the shelf. he grabbed 2 (one for me) but they wouldnt let him take it since he already had one :disgust:

shoot last year i had people try and take my GF3 from me. i was reading a cd burner box and had the box of the gf3 sitting next to me (i had my hand on the box with other boxes) and some guy tried to take it. I felt and seen him trying and told him it was mine he just said oh. and onother guy tried to take it out of the cart (we ended up buying a TV they had for sale) when i was not looking. FUDGE people are annoying.

But after all of that i didnt feel it worth the drive. Not for one item.

 

[LAUST]

I don't know how people fall to shopping on this stupid day.... this is a wonderful day to sleep in or whatever, anything but shop with the earth turkeys

 

[dakata24]

did i not have to wake up so early? they dont have the GF4 or the Sandisk CF cards online, but they have the D-Link 802.11b Wireless Router ($49.99 after $60 MIR) and the Toshiba 1115-S103 laptop ($649 after $350 MIR) online availlable to purchase (Usually ships in 2-3 business days)...

edit: oh well. it was fun nonetheless..

 

[TrueBlueLS]

Originally posted by: NetworkDad

Originally posted by: RossMAN
Susan just called and said she found a good deal on some bedsheets at Meier & Frank.

I wanna be out shopping instead of at work!!!!

Oh, damn, you gotta work ?? How can you work on a day like this, with all the good deals ?

What deals? I personally thought this year sucked.

 

[manly]

It seemed as if every OTHER person at Best Buy was carrying around a Mintek 2110 DVD player, waiting in the line snaking around the whole store.

Of course I knew better. I also picked up the hackable APEX AD-1500 DVD player at Long's Drugs where hardly anyone was shopping.

 

[dmcowen674]

I never saw so many TV's bought in one day. There were carts as far as the eye can see full of TV's. Everything from 13" all in one units to 72" Flat Plasma Monsters everywhere, can't tell me people don't have money.